Happy 10th birthday Xbox: 'We're incredibly proud' says Euro boss

November 16th, 2011, 01:44 Posted By: wraggster

Xbox is ten years old today, having hit US stores on November 15, 2001, and Microsoft bigwig Chris Lewis has been reflecting on the brand's launch, present and future in an interview with Edge.
Lewis, who's currently vice president of Microsoft's Europe, Middle East and Africa entertainment business and has worked at the company for nearly 22 years, said the platform holder has plenty of Xbox achievements to be proud of - and admitted that personally he never thought the brand would grow as fast as it has."We were agile - we were first with many things we were proud of," Lewis said. "So I was confident we had the appetite for it. Could I have seen us here in ten years time? No.
"Did I think we would have 57 million Xbox 360s out there and growing? No, I probably wouldn't have guessed we'd have that much momentum. But we were in for the long term and that it was a marathon, not a sprint."
Central to the success of Microsoft's Xbox business is of course Xbox Live, which Lewis said has enabled the company to build on its early visions of a connected world of online gaming.
"I've already said we're incredibly proud of Live. I know we have a rich array of entertainment partners coming and TV coming.
"That whole service orientation is right at the centre of what we do and the scope, as broadband penetration gets deeper and speeds get faster, is only going to grow. The future's brighter for us than it is for anybody."
Lewis also said Kinect, which has helped broaden Xbox's appeal, will become more relevant to core gamers.
"We were very deliberate when we brought Kinect to market that the need was to appeal to the broader family consumer in that first foray of our marketing and games.
"The second phase is to start to appeal to the core gamer, but the key is to make sure we don't alienate either. This is another example of the challenge to make sure we can appeal and resonate with the core gamer with both controller and Kinect-based games, and at the same time bring family and broad entertainment to market.
"A lot of that media work is kicking in now in Europe. We're on track and in line with the plan we originally set out."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ays-euro-boss/

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